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According to Lightbown and Spada (2006), all language learners will go through the same language
acquisition process, although they come from different language backgrounds. Here, developmental
sequence is defined as the same order of word positioning in a sentence. An example would be the
developmental stages of ‘negation’ as identified by Schumann (1979), Clahsen (1988), and Berdan
(1996), where there are four stages; ‘No’ + X, ‘No’/ ‘Not’/ ‘Don’t’ + Verb, ‘Auxiliary’ + Negative, and
‘ ‘Analysed’ do.
In language teaching, the ‘developmental sequence’ system is widely used by teachers and educators in
language classroom. However, as we are all aware, the first stage would take place even before a child
goes to school, where the responsibility of teaching a child is solely based on the parents. For example, a
mother would never say ‘You didn’t mess your playroom, right?’ to her 3 year-old child, with very limited
vocabulary. This is probably because the structure of negation itself is situated in the stage 4, according
to Schumann. The mother would probably say something like ‘No happy’ or ‘No play’ to her child.
Hence, as any other issues in language acquisition, developmental sequence has its own strengths or
weakness. Developmental sequence is an important tool to develop one’s sentence structuring skill. This
can be seen in the stages, where a language learner must get a grasp of what’s important in the sentence
itself. For example, in negation, it is essential to have the negative markers such as ‘no’ or ‘not’. However,
on the other hand, a learner’s first language may influence the second language acquisition process.

Research have found that similarly to first language acquisition, second language learners’ acquisition
of grammatical morphemes (e.g. plural, articles, irregular past, …) is quite systematic and predictable
(Brown, 1973; de Villiers, 1973; Krashen, 1982). That is to say that learners’ language goes through
stages of development or developmental sequences that reflect a certain order of acquisition. It is not to
say that the boundaries between one stage and another are clear cut, but they are rather blurry and fuzzy
where one can notice the emergence of morphemes belonging to different stages at a given time in the
learners’ language. The stage, at which a learner is, is roughly reflected in the increase of new forms.
This increase in new forms is paralleled with an increase in errors which are not to be mistaken with a
regression but rather a progression. Therefore, educators and syllabi designers should take this “built-in
syllabus” of learners, to use Corder’s (1967) terminology, into consideration. Learners learn what they are
‘programmed’ to learn in a specific order. It is also worth noting that the first language influence should
not be ignored as it could hinder the smooth transition between the developmental sequences whereby
similarities and/or differences between the first and second languages might make it harder for learners
with certain L1 backgrounds to master a new form compared to others. For example, Japanese learning
English might find it difficult to master the use of articles since such an aspect is absent in their L1. One
interesting thing then to ask ourselves, recalling the age-old behaviourist theory of language acquisition,
is whether it is all that right to discard everything about that theory, specifically “contrastive analysis”
(contrast of L1/L2 systems)?
According to Corder (1967), we need to understand the nature of this "built-in-
syllabus ". This

Some implications of developmental sequencing for language teaching is teacher

should be familiar with the developmental stages and consider each of the stages of
their learners. Although it is time consuming to interview every learners, but it
would be beneficial to the long-term success of the instruction and classroom as a
whole. For example, in one class, learners will be categorized in a variety of stages.
Thus, problems arise with school financing for streamlining classes and trying to
place students in appropriate groups. Secondly, teacher should gear their grammar
teaching lessons to students at "i+1" levels, where i serves as the current language
level. They do not allow students to be placed with others in the same
developmental stages, then teachers should measure the developmental stages of
each group of learners on their own. This allow them to know which students are
ready for the acquisition of certain linguistic structures or not.
The learner’s innate and instruction ability to acquire a language should work together so that the
developmental sequencing could have a chain reaction impact on language teaching. To begin with,
learners may be distressed to learn the Target Language as they may be affected by their Native
Language. Hence, language teachers should take into account that every student does not develop
language at the same pace. The acquisition of the Target Language might be slowed down by the
learners’ Native Language. Therefore, the process of instruction should start with the easiest and
gradually increased so it develops the speed of the learning process and the errors produced by the
learners could be minimised. The learner’s “built-in-syllabus” plays a vital role in the language learning
process. Corder (1967) identifies it as “built-in-syllabus” where learners regardless of their Native
Language and the order of the structure they were taught, they have this strong tendency to create the
same simple linguistics structures which will eventually transform and follow the structure that their
teacher had in minds. Identifying the natural order may guide language instructors in designing their
syllabus. Another effect of knowledge in developmental sequencing is the emotional impact of it. If the
process of language learning is started from the basic and increased gradually, it will help both, the
teacher and learner, to be less frustrated as the students will eventually learn the target feature and their
mistakes are all part of different stages of learning.

According to Corder's "built-in syllabal' theory in1967, it is learners' nature that they first produce the
same simple linguistic structures and then gradually change those linguistic structures to the ones their
teacher had in mind. There are developmental stages for learners to climb. Besides, the learners’
development sequences normally are not influenced by instructions. So, second language teachers
should follow learners’ language developmental sequences instead of skipping or altering their language
developmental stages when they are teaching, which means teaching should be step by step.
The developmental sequences of learners might give teachers some implication that, teaching is not a
one-day work, like Roman does not make by one day. Since learners’ developmental stages might not
directly transfer from 1st stage to the second stage, sometimes even shift back from a higher stage to a
lower stage, one thing teachers can do is interspersed lower stage to learners to help learners to aware
what they are not supposed to do in this stage. Another is teachers might function as observers and
help students to correct their mistakes. For example, in the script of Antonio, segment3, the sentence
“he, don’t don’t find” is at stage 2 while some of his sentences actually reached stage 3, eg, segment 1
sentence 63, ”I don’t know”. Similar phenomena occur continuously in the learning process. It is important
for teachers to figure out and help learners to clarify them.
I would like to highlight about emotional impact of knowledge in developmental
sequencing. I agree with your point that learning process should start from basic
then increased gradually. Students would feel clueless if teacher begins the lesson
with something complex which is beyond their understanding. This would
definitely discourage and decrease their motivation to learn the target/new
language. For instance, I observed that my Year 6 pupils understand the English
lesson better when I simplify the reading text according to their level. They
showed active participation during the lesson. This implies that educator need to
consider the learner's level in their daily teaching especially the content of the
lesson. Another good point is 'mistakes are all part of different stages of learning'.
It is important for the learners to make mistake as it is a part of learning. Students
actually learn when they do mistakes. In my opinion, teacher should not
demotivate their students by giving bad comments if they make mistakes. In the
other way, the teacher should encourage their students by giving praises or token to
build positive emotion in their learning. I believed emotion has direct pedagogical
implications to language learning classroom. In creating positive learning
conditions for their students, teachers should conduct interesting activities so that
they will feel enjoy. Thus, positive emotional conditions can be built among them.